CLI Reference

The krate CLI is the single entry point for building and serving Krate sites.

Command	Description
krate build [dir]	Production build
krate dev [dir]	Build + dev server (port 3000) + hot reload
krate serve [dir]	Build + static HTTP server (production preview)
krate init [dir]	Scaffold a new project (alias: create)
krate version	Print the version

krate build

Builds the site into outDir (default dist).

krate build krate build ./my-site

Flag	Description
--config <path>	Path to a config file (default krate.config.ts)
--out-dir <path>	Override the output directory
--watch	Rebuild when files change

During the build the compiler:

1. Runs plugin BeforeBuild hooks (the docs plugin generates pages here).
2. Builds every page in parallel (SSR evaluation + hydration codegen).
3. Merges and deduplicates CSS, inlines @imports, and runs minification.
4. Writes hashed JS chunks, the shared runtime chunk, and manifest.json.
5. Copies publicDir assets, compiles API routes, middleware, and runtime components.

krate dev

Starts a build + HTTP dev server with hot reload.

krate dev

• Serves the site on port 3000 (configurable via devServer.port).
• Watches source files and rebuilds changed pages.
• Uses SSE hot reload to push updates to open tabs.
• Shows compilation errors inline via the dev error overlay.

krate serve

Builds the site and serves the production output over HTTP.

krate serve

Useful for previewing dist/ exactly as a static host would serve it.

krate init

Scaffolds a brand-new Krate project by delegating to create-krate-app. create is an alias for init.

krate init my-app # or krate create my-app

With no directory it prompts for a name:

krate init

The scaffolded project includes a krate.config.ts, tsconfig.json, package.json (with dev/build/serve scripts), a landing page, a layout, a 404 page, a signal-powered Counter example, and global styles.

krate version

Prints the compiler version:

krate version

Build output

A production build produces:

dist/ index.html # pre-rendered pages (one per route) docs/... # plugin-generated pages (e.g. the docs site) index.<hash>.js # per-page hydration bundles styles.<hash>.css # merged, deduplicated CSS chunks/runtime.<hash>.js # shared runtime chunk manifest.json # page + SSR/ISR metadata _krate/images/... # processed <Image> variants